Tips for Cyber Monday

Posted By
Margie Fishman
On
November 24, 2012 @ 11:03 pm
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Uncategorized |
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Still have some shopping juice left after Black Friday and Small Business Saturday? Get ready for Cyber Monday, when online retailers unleash massive deals. For instance, Staples has announced that it will slash the prices of cameras and desktops by 45 percent. Roku is offering the Roku 2 player at a $25 discount.

Roughly 122 million Americans are expected to shop online on Cyber Monday, according to Shop.org, which coined the Cyber Monday term in 2005. To put those numbers into perspective, fewer than 150 million people were expected to shop brick-and-mortar stores over the three-day Black Friday weekend. While Cyber Monday might not require the same level of concentration as winning an eBay auction, there are some useful tips to maximize your chances of stamping out your holiday gift list.

Prepare now. Some stores announce Cyber Monday deals up to a week in advance. Sign up for e-mail alerts from your favorites, join loyalty clubs and check Facebook and Twitter feeds to access up-to-the-minute sales. The Find.com app helps shoppers price-compare and alerts you when they drop. The TGICyberMonday app aggregates deals from major retailers.

While research shows that nearly a quarter of shoppers will get an early start before 3 a.m., some retailers stagger promotions throughout the day. Shop.org will list “Deals of the Hour.” Don’t pay for shopping. Many retailers throw it in for free and if they don’t Free Shipping Day is Dec. 17, when more than 1,000 retailers guarantee before-Christmas delivery.

Use a credit card to minimize fraud issues. Enter credit card information manually, instead of saving it on retailers’ websites. Confirm the online purchases are secure by looking in the web address box of an Internet browser for the “s” in the “http.” Use a home Internet connection rather than a public network or Wi-Fi.